PARISHIONERS of a New Bury church delved into their past over the weekend.

St James Church held a special family history day to celebrate its forthcoming 140th anniversary.

Alongside an exhibition of old photographs, the church brought out its registers of births, marriages and deaths from the past 140 years, which are kept Central Archives in Manchester.

The Reverend Brian Hartley said: "Because this is not a historic church as such we decided to mark the occasion using people's history. There was a celebratory service in the morning and an exhibition throughout the day.

"We had a steady stream of people throughout the day, and quite a few former members of the church who have since moved away but came back. Quite a few people were interested in looking at the registers and tracing their family history which is quite popular these days." The church's 140th birthday actually falls on December 30th, but the church decided to bring the celebrations forward because of the busy festive season.

But said Mr Hartley: "We will have something on the actual anniversary. But we decided to coincide the main event with the Civic Trust's heritage weekend."

He added: "But events like this do establish a link with the community and there were some new faces on the day."